Impact on Relationships

• Do neophiles see DFOCs as beneficial or detrimental for relationships?

  Beneficial
• How can DFOCs allow you to have more relationships?

  • Have more relationships
  • Maintain distance relationships
  • Have new types of relationships
• What DFOC platforms allow you to make new relationships?

  • Dating websites
  • Video conference (skl/work)
  • Membership in online communities
• What do PMs think of online relationships?

  • Generally +ve
  • AO2: Bauman - they’re uncertain
  • AO2: Giddens - they make us reflective
• What do 4th Wave Fem.s think of online relationships?

  • Generally +ve
  • We can define our own identity
  • Share exp. of oppression
• +VE AO2: Gardner & Davis + Van Dijck

  • PROs of online relationships:
  • Transcend geo barriers
  • Immediate
  • Allow youths to ’hang out’ on SM
• +VE AO2: Miller

  SM sites e.g. FB enable ppl to maintain relationships over a distance
• +VE AO2: Bargh & McKenna

  Online s. networks can help those w/ low self-esteem
• -VE AO2: Cultural pessimists + Chomsky - CONs of online relationships

  • ’Unsatisfactory substitutes for real f-t-f relationships’
  • Online friends aren’t emotionally committed to you/aren’t who they claim to be
  • Unauthentic
  • Shallow
  • Full of deception
• -VE: What can online anonymity lead to?

  Unrestricted and hard to police cyber-bullying, trolling, Twitter-storms
• -VE AO2: Sherry Turkle

  Online relationships make us ‘alone together’
• Who disagreed with Sherry Turkle?

  Jurgenson
• AO2: What did Jurgenson say about the time we spend on DFOCs?

  • Jurgenson argues AGAINST digital dualism (the idea that on-/off- line life are separate)
  • Instead, he sees them as augmented reality > digi/phys exp.s shape e/o
  • Believes time on DFOCs isn’t wasted, rather an extension of real social life
• -VE AO2: Utz & Beukeboom

  • DFOCs damage social relationships
  • S. network sites inc. the info that ppl can access ab. their partner ➡️ spying, uncertainty in the relationship
• +VE & -VE AO2: Kitson

  +VE: SM/tech has allowed ppl to sustain romantic relationships over long distances

  -VE: They’ve ‘ruined’ dating by increasing the availability of options, so ppl might start looking for 'perfection'
• -VE AO2: Pew found that __% of F online daters have been harassed. 


  57%
• -VE AO2: Miller

  'Friending' reps. an inflation of superficial friendships, diminishing the value of TRUE friendship
• -VE AO2: ’Post-familial family’

  When family members spend more time on devices than w/ each other; becoming the norm
• How do DFOCs disrupt families?

  By reducing family time + closeness
• -VE AO2: Livingstone

  Today’s children communicate more w/ the virtual world than their acc family members
• -VE AO2: Palmer

  • 'Toxic childhood' = Parents using media to distract/entertain kids, replacing f-t-f interaction
  • Links to 'post-familial family' + Livingstone's ideas